Senior Congress leader Ghulam Nabi Azad on Saturday said "even Jammu and Kashmir police can defeat Pakistan, which is a dead horse" and accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi of repeatedly resorting to rhetoric in the name of the neighboring country, just to divert the nation's attention from core issues.
The Leader of Opposition in the Rajya Sabha also said Modi was "insulting" the country by comparing it with Pakistan. "I haven't seen the Prime Minister speaking on unemployment, the Home Minister speaking on farmers issues, any ministers talking about improving GDP and any of the BJP leaders speaking on controlling price rise. These are the issues that concern each and every individual, whatever religion or caste they may belong to," Azad said.
Speaking to reporters here, he said instead what we hear is only "rhetoric" against Pakistan. "Pakistan is a dead horse...just to divert issues, Pakistan name is raised. What is Pakistan? If you send Kashmir police, they can also defeat Pakistan... The Prime Minister is rather insulting India by comparing it with Pakistan. It is a great insult to India. I'm sorry!
"The Prime Minister should not scare Indians in the name of Pakistan. It is very insulting that Pakistan will attack us. Are we that weak? he added. The Congress has often accused the Prime Minister of raising "emotive" or "sensitive" issues like Pakistan and terrorism to divert the attention of the nation from core
issues like economy, employment, price raise among other things.
Noting that anti-CAA protests are happening across the country, Azad said in the past few decades he had not seen such a "spontaneous agitation" taking place across the country involving all sections of society, religions and regions.
"It clearly indicates that some thing has really gone wrong somewhere," the Congress leader said as he paid homage to two people killed during anti-CAA protest in Mangaluru last month calling them "innocent boys." He also made it clear it was not only Muslims who were killed during anti-CAA protests in several parts of the country and said, "all sections of people are part of the protests...the entire country has risen to the occasion against this act."
Pointing out that in Parliament most of the political parties had opposed CAB, Azad said in the Lok Sabha government used "brute majority" to get it through, while in Rajya Sabha it was passed with very narrow margin.
He said five regional parties like BJD, JD(U) and YSR Congress among others who voted in favour of the bill have now realised that they have done a "blunder", had they voted against the bill it would not have been passed and it would have got defeated by 8-10 votes.
Azad also denied the charge that Congress was behind anti-CAA and NRC protests across the country and said the BJP was making such allegations as they lack the capacity and experience to rule such a vast and diverse country, where everyone is treated equally.
"If we were so strong enough to also mobilise the opinion of UN, satisfy the German Chancellor, President of France and number of heads of states and various organisations across the world- then BJP would have got just two seats," he said.
Referring to former Foreign Secretary Shivshankar Menon's statement, he said internationally India is being abused after passing acts like the CAA. The UN, the German Chancellor and French President among other top leaders of the world have given statements against us, and so did the global media.
Menon too on Friday had slammed the government for amending the Citizenship Act, saying India has "isolated" itself through the move and the list of critical voices both at home and abroad is "pretty long."
The Congress leader alleged in first five years of coming to power the Prime Minister spent lot of money to make his own image, but in the sixth year he is solely responsible for destroying it, and Congress or any other opposition parties did not have to do anything.
As most of the promises made by Modi made ahead of the polls were false and his government had failed in implementing them, he said adding, "the only option left for this government was to polarise the people in the name of religion, which they are effectively doing."
"That's the reason they are bringing bills that will make people fight among themselves and the focus will get diverted from issues," he added. However, people of the country have of late realised that they were being used by BJP just for votes and have taught a lesson to it, he said adding in the Maharashtra and
Haryana polls- where abrogation of Article 370 was used as an election issue and during Jharkhand election- where CAB used for campaigning, the party's performance was bad. "People have understood that BJP was showing the moon and was only giving hatred in return," Azad added.
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